The urban socio-environmental dimension of arapiraca/al under the perspective of vulnerability indicators

Abstract

The present research seeks to find out if people subject to environmental risks and hazards are necessarily socially and environmentally vulnerable. The research methodology involved a bibliographic review on the website of the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD); in the CAPES/MEC Journals portal and in the Scientific Electronic Library Online-SciELO in the period from 2000 to 2014. Methodological aspects based on the creation of criteria and indicators were used to create the Socio-Environmental Vulnerability Index (IVSA). Then, secondary data was collected, made available by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics-IBGE (Demographic Censuses- 2000 and 2010), in addition to making maps. From the point of view of socio-environmental vulnerability, the criteria and their respective indicators showed that the city of Arapiraca is at a low vulnerability level with an index of 0.35 on a scale of 0.0 (minimum value) to 1.0 (maximum value). However, among the three established criteria (exposure, sensitivity and responsiveness), exposure and response capacity showed the greatest non-conformities. We conclude that territorial planning is an indispensable tool for socioeconomic development based on the formulation of public policies that will mitigate and reduce the socio-environmental vulnerability of the city of Arapiraca.